Turkish jets target Iraqi Kurdish sites

Security sources say nine hideouts in Qandil region attacked over last three days after clashes on other side of border.

24 Jun 2012 18:29 GMT

Military raids killed dozens of Kurdish rebels in October, in a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives [Getty]

Turkey has said it carried out air strikes on nine Kurdish targets deep into northern Iraq between June 22 and 24, just days after severe clashes on the other side of the border.

The Turkish military said in a statement on Sunday that most of the targets were in the Qandil region and were hideouts and caves belonging to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters, near their main base on the Iraq-Iran border.

It said all its jets had returned safely to their bases.

Meanwhile, Kurdish fighters killed one policeman and wounded three others in a roadside bomb attack inside Turkey on Sunday near the town of Derik in Mardin province, reports said.

Turkish soldiers and Kurdish fighters clashed last week in one the most intense battles this year of the conflict, with around 30 combatants killed in fighting at army outposts in southeast Turkey.

Barzani reaction

Up to 100 fighters from the PKK had launched simultaneous dawn attacks on three military observation points in Hakkari province near Turkey's mountainous border with Iraq on Tuesday, killing eight soldiers and wounding 19.

Masoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdish region, criticised Turkey's air attacks, saying that a peaceful solution was the only answer.

"It is unfortunate that we are seeing this kind of deterioration and we are against the operations that are carriedout inside Turkey or the air raids that are carried out by Turkey in areas in Iraqi Kurdistan," Barzani said in the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital, Erbil, on Sunday.

The oil-producing autonomous region of Kurdistan is a potential flashpoint for tensions among ethnic Kurds, Turkmenand Iraqi Arabs.